


The Shower Fic That Literally No One Asked For

by lousy_science



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016), Suicide Squad (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8342557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousy_science/pseuds/lousy_science
Summary: "Quarantine?"





	1. Chapter 1

After six hours stuck in a crater of an exploded meth lab in a field in Kansas, the smell was beginning to get to Rick. The Squad had been sent in to deal with the chaos created by a volatile synthetic super-drug that had begun circulating around rural communities, places which had been fatally unprepared for a devastating upgrade from simple home baked crystal methamphetamine to something more sinister.

“What’s the big deal?” Digger had asked at the briefing the day before. “So some hicks are getting tweaked big time out on the prairie?”

Waller started passing out photos. Deadshot picked one up and sucked his teeth. “Oh, that is fucked _all_ the way up.”

Leaning her hands on the table, Waller explained, “It’s not meth. It recreates some of the metaphysical capacities we’ve already seen, but on a very primitive, destructive level, giving the user gills, swollen eyeballs, and scales. We’re calling it Fish Food.”

Rick refrained from rolling his eyes at the name, but no one else in the team had his professionalism. Croc spoke up,“What’s wrong with scales?”

Deadshot reassured him, “These hick fish-boys ain’t as good looking as you.”

Waller added, “When they're not dying, these hick fish-boys are being rounded up and forced to work as drug mules.”

Turning to Rick, Deadshot asked, “Who by?”

“We suspect the Joker.”

That had got everyone excited. They’d arrived in the Sunflower State looking forward to the prospect of seeing Harley again and kicking some clown ass. Of course, it had all gone wrong from the outset. It wasn’t even the Joker responsible, just some jacked-up imitator with a bad green hair dye job and a small army of sociopathic juggalos armed to the hilt defending the drug lab fortress that he’d built in the middle of a wheat field.

The clowns did not roll out the welcome mat. Instead, various farming vehicles jerry-rigged with an innovative array of projectile weaponry immediately swarmed them. Forced to retreat after losing ground to a re-routed stream of effluent that flooded their vantage point, Rick moved the squad to the flimsy shelter of an abandoned barn as they tried to tell the difference between killer clowns and the drugged-up, helpless Fish Food victims being used as human shields.

Just to add an extra wrinkle, another side effect of Fish Food was that prolonged use could lead to projectile vomiting. Katana made that unfortunate discovery when she tried to save one screaming fish boy who staggered out from behind an overturned tractor.

Temporarily blinded, she was jumped by a pair of clowns who dragged her into the back of a truck. That was, Rick reflected, when the situation had gone from ‘unfortunate’ to ‘five star, gold-plated, fur-lined, FUBAR.’ Comms had failed, Rick had sent Croc and Boomerang off to disable the power lines, while he went to get Katana with Deadshot.

Turned out that the Squad weren’t the only ones trying to shut the operation down. A local biker gang was upset at having their good ol’ fashioned drug distribution business disrupted by some punk wannabe. So they fired up their hogs and unleashed a round of whoop-ass. One of them brought along a flame-thrower. It hit a vat of Fish Food, which promptly made like one of Waller's skull microchips and exploded, setting off a chain of fireballs.

While Katana got out with Boomerang and Croc, Rick and Floyd were stuck fighting off both the bikers and the clowns, two groups who made up for their lack of smarts with heavy firepower and a profound disregard for personal safety. The shelter they were under provided minimal sightlines, and night had fallen with a thud.

Floyd fired three bullets over Rick’s shoulder. “Why does everything smell like cowshit in the country?”

Rick loaded both the chambers of his shotgun. “That’s the beauty of the countryside. Cows, fields, homicidal drug dealers.”

They were knee deep in thick, green, silty water, huddled under a shaky canopy of smoldering aluminum. Rick heard one of the bullets land and peered through his night vision binoculars.

“Nailed four o’clock, he’s down. Clown on the North-East advancing.”

“Cows at least get barns. But we’re not in a barn, no, not us, the heroes. We’re in a hole filled with snot.”

“There’s a second clown on his left.”

“I got him. Can you take care of this redneck with the Uzi?”

Rick swung his rifle to the left and lined up the shot to the biker’s shoulder. Deadshot kept talking. “Livestock get treated better than this. Fucking fishstick junky Exorcist kids get better than this. We’re covered in so many carcinogens I can feel the tumors growing.”

“How’s your artillery load?”

“35%. You?”

Sending a shot out to warn off another gang member, this one with a huge beard and what looked like a grenade launcher, Rick leaned back against Floyd. “Think I’ve got two full rounds left.”

“Brace yourself on me, ZZ Top here's wearing armor.”

They pivoted together, Floyd moving a step forward to get better visibility of the incoming gang member. It was murky, as well as stinky, with the vapor curling up from whatever it was they were wading through and what little light they had fading with the erratic power supply.

Rick felt the kick of the shots fired leaning against his back. There was some yelling, the sound of a body hitting the ground and another running away. A motorcycle engine revved, sounding two feet away from them. He raised his rifle but before he could focus, Floyd’s arm gauntlet-gun had zoomed out over his shoulder and a bullet made it through a crack in their aluminum cage and into the chassis of the bike. Rick didn’t see the crash, but he heard it.

He whispered to himself, “Nice work.”

“I have my moments.”

There was a sudden splash in the pit and they spun at once to the left, where a raggedy-looking clown was climbing down the slimy bank of dirt towards them. Rick pushed an arm out to stop Floyd - this one wasn’t armed, was looking sheepish, arms raised as he started pleading.

“Please take me away. I only came along because my friend Chad dared me to. It’s shitty and the people are awful and I wanna get out of here, and I really, really fucking hate -” he tugged at the electric blue Mohawk wilting over his forehead - “this stupid hair.”

 

They had to climb out of the crater and pick their way over the explosion debris, fallen clowns, and scattered hay bales before Flag could get a radio signal back. Chip - for that was their refugee goon’s name - directed them to a hole in the fencing which their slime-slippery bodies easily wriggled through.

Rick called in their location and looked over to Chip and Floyd. Floyd, who had to be as exhausted and aggravated as Rick was, had his hands on Chip’s shoulders, and from the sound of it was giving him a dose of his Phil Jackson motivational material. Rick made eye contact with him and gestured with the radio. If he reported Chip’s existence and how he’d turned himself in, the poor kid would be arrested, and possibly have a federal case pinned against him. Floyd shook his head, conveying in one glance all the information Rick needed.

“Roger that. Deadshot is with me. Fatigued but OK. We’ll need transport. What’s the rest of the Squad’s status?”

He looked back at where Floyd was sending Chip off, telling the kid to scram back to apple pie and Mom as fast as he could “and don’t go messing with carny folk any more, got it?”

Chip jogged away, hiking up his saggy purple yoga pants, and Floyd strolled over. Rick could see the tiny hint of a limp - his bad knee must be aching after not being able to stand upright while they were hunched in the crater. Floyd started the mission off in a bad mood when they realized there would be no sign of Harley. Now he had been marinated in a stew of Fish Food, manure, tractor fuel, and various assorted chemicals, all while shooting Sideshow Bob clones and KKK also-rans for neither fun nor profit.

“Where’s our team?”

Rick told him, “I just heard. They’re alright. Got out in one piece, correct?”

Waller’s voice came through the radio. “Everyone’s fine. Boomerang got Katana and Croc onto a quad bike and drove them all to safety before the explosions began.”

“Wait. Boomerang was _useful_?” Floyd's eyebrows shot up his forehead.

Amanda’s response was in her usual deadpan manner. “That’s not the only surprise you’re getting tonight. We worked out the source of the drug supplier - it goes straight to Gotham. With the intel that Katana gathered when she was inside, the FBI just got arrest warrants authorized for five members of the Falcone crime family.”

Rick and Floyd looked at each other, both thinking of how much more fun it would be when they swarmed Carmine Falcone’s tacky-ass Gotham headquarters, Falcone Towers, and slung handcuffs on those goombah schmucks. Flag would happily overlook Floyd roughing up some scummy mafioso if it gave him a little stress relief.

He said into the receiver, “You can debrief us on the trip to Gotham. Where’s our transport?”

“You and Deadshot are not going to Gotham.”

Rick swallowed. “I don’t copy?”

Floyd stopped in the middle of yanking strands of green slime off his uniform. "Say what?"

Waller continued, “The lab here has been analyzing the sample the drug strain you were exposed to. It’s not safe to have you near civilians or other personnel for a minimum of four days until we have assessed your risk factors.”

“What risk factors?”

“Flag, you reported that you and Deadshot were knee-deep in this material for several hours. You’re in quarantine until we can confirm that the exposure to - whatever this product was - was not permanently toxic.”

“ _Quarantine?_ ” And what did she mean by permanently toxic?

Floyd mouthed _what the fuck?_ at him while Waller continued. “There’s a vehicle five klicks south-west of your current position. Coordinates will be preset to the GPS, we’re dropping off a detox station for you to pick up en route.”

Not bothering to whisper, Floyd asked, “What does that mean?”

Flag told him what a detox station was, “Portable showers and tents - ”

“Tents? I have been here in clown scum all day and I have to have a tent? Do I look like a Boy Scout?” He grabbed the radio from Rick. “Ms. Waller, I have not slept or had a shower in two days. If I smell half as bad as Flag, I stink like a mosquito’s tweeter. There has got to be a four star hotel close by with security clearance.”

Something burst back over the radio that Rick couldn’t quite make out.

Floyd narrowed his eyes and said. “So it’s not gonna be a tent?”

A brisk affirmative answer came back.

“Fine. But I am ashy, Amanda. Get them to put some lotion in that drop-off.”

 

Once they found the jeep, hidden between some dead trees on a deserted field, Rick ordered Floyd to stretch out the best he could in the back. He didn’t say so, but he wanted Floyd to keep that knee elevated as much as his six foot frame could manage in their decidedly non-ergonomic transport. They drove through the Kansas night towards the spot on the GPS where a drone was going to meet them with their quarantine supplies.

Floyd eventually ran out of ways of cursing out Waller, Flag, the mission, Kansas, and lumpy car seats, and told Rick about Chip.

“Said he was a theater arts major who got into juggling and circus arts. That’s where all this started. If Zoe ever even looks sideways at a juggling ball, I’m going to ground her.”

“I thought you’d approve of juggling. It’s projectiles, being thrown around space, precisely handled.” Flag knew Floyd was some kind of savant with physics, he’d seen him make near impossible hook shots in the Belle Reve basketball yard.

“I don’t approve of non-fatal projectiles, Colonel, c’mon. Throwing things just for entertainment? Little balls of foam or whatever? S’bullshit.”

Rick smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks. “I bet when Floyd Lawton was in short pants he had a yo-yo, right?”

Floyd grunted at him, looking away. Rick knew he must be close, and pressed on. “You do all the tricks, Floyd? Walk the dog, all that?”

“I didn’t just walk the dog, I ran that bitch. I could do the UFO, the Atom Smasher, Around the World - I was the master of my domain.”

“What about the Tsunami?”

“Tsu - are you kidding? I could Tsunami your ass off. Behind my back, eyes closed. No one could touch my yo-yo game. Sixth grade throwdowns, I beat ‘em all.”

Rick was about to request a demo, but the GPS beeped and he pulled the car over to a side lane. “Should be over here.”

The sun was coming up and shining over yet another hay field. Floyd complained about missing concrete and smog. They made their way through the hay to a break in the tree line. The drone had come and gone, and there were four large metal carry cases they had to drag back to the car. 

“What’s in here? It’s not going to be a bucket of fried chicken and a foot massage, is it?”

Rick sighed. “Waller said we have to test our blood. It'll have lab kits, and whatever the Belle Reve doctors think’ll cure this crud.”

“Those quacks? We’re going to end up like those mice they grew ears on. I don’t want any extra limbs.”

 _Extras_ were exactly what Amanda was worried about, of course. If there was the slightest hint that something in Fish Food could replicate metahuman abilities, it could have far-ranging consequences. The world was already scared enough of the naturally-made freaks; if some backyard drug could start giving society’s dregs extra-special powers, anyone could build themselves an army of Suicide Squads, and they wouldn't have Waller's chips in their necks.

 

Their next stop was the place they were meant to stay for the duration of their quarantine. Down a long gravel path, a narrow white building sat on the ridge of a slight hill. From a distance, it looked like a plain farmhouse. Rick knew that it was an old FBI training facility, used occasionally as a safehouse, that Waller had requisitioned with her usual infinite capacity for resourcefulness. Against the dawn, this lost artifact of the Cold War looked almost pretty.

“Let’s just hope,” Rick muttered to himself, “the Feds paid the power bill.”

“Four days of quarantine.” Floyd didn’t sound thrilled about it, but he didn’t sound homicidal, either. “With Waller checking in to make sure we’ve not turned into purple people-eaters overnight.”

Waller was probably worried about withdrawal symptoms, too, Rick guessed. Which was part of the reason he’d figure they had had to drive for so long, for her to ensure both of them were far away from any temptation to self-medicate.

Right now all he wanted was a horizontal surface and the chance to sleep a measly ten or fifteen hours. Instead he drove up the path while Floyd hummed the tune theme to Green Acres.

 

After checking the perimeter (“There’s nothing out here but crickets and the smell of cows”) they lugged the metal cases into the building. The lights switched on, and there was running water in the basic kitchen area, for which Rick thanked his tax dollars at work. Inside, the layout was simple, not miles away from a suburban house but with a few added features: a padded cell, an interrogation room with one-way mirror, and a hatch for the bomb shelter in the middle of the living room floor.

Rick sighed, “C’mon, let’s get this over with, and we can crash. Gotta take blood samples and upload them into this whatzit, then wash up.”

Floyd started peeling off his body armor. “This place is meant to be some Fox Mulder shit, a conspiracy theorist’s idea of a wet dream. Secret government hideout, and the decor is hideous. Check it out, a couple of broken La-Z-Boys and peeling wallpaper. Looks like a Frat house with bad lighting.”

They stuck their blood samples into a heavy machine that bleeped and blooped at them, then Rick uploaded the readings to the hand-held transmitter that would fire their results back to the lab. He’d been in the Belle Reve labs just once. They were installed in a sterile and cold underground bunker that was almost less inviting than the cells.

Rick dug around the supply kit for three large white containers with lab labels on them, filled with some sort of gunk. “So, this is the stuff we’re meant to wash with.”

Floyd popped a lid open and took a whiff. “Smells like that floor cleaner they use at McDonalds.”

He held it under Rick’s nose. Memories of scrubbing down barracks flooded back. “I think that’s exactly what it is.”

“This is the what’s going to un-poison us?”

“According to the label, we have to use,” Rick lifted up two more containers, “ all three, in order.”

“And we trust the whackjobs who cook this stuff up? It’s not exactly L’Oreal.”

“We don’t have a shitload of choice, Lawton. But there is something else in here.” Rick lobbed a bottle at him.

Floyd held up the super-sized container of cocoa butter in triumph. “Thank you Amanda! See, Mama does love me the best.”

And Colonel Rick Flag was exhausted, sweaty, covered in a layer of possibly-radioactive gunk, and standing in a room almost certainly used to torture people, but if he was stuck here, he guessed that he could have worse company than Floyd Lawton and his shit-eating grin.

 

Naturally, in a building made out of outs and ends and very weird priorities, there was only a communal shower.

A double, to be precise, which was as weirdly off-kilter as everything else.

They could have taken turns, but that would leave them to work out separately just how to apply the detoxification stuff. Floyd didn’t blink, just said, “Let’s get this foam party started,” and began peeling off the rest of his outfit, the red now tinged dark with green stains, folding it up on the floor. Rick looked at it and figured, at least it’s not blood stains. Floyd nudged the pile with his toes, and Rick looked at his feet. Long and strong looking, like the rest of Floyd's body. Runner’s feet.

“This stuff better wash out, all this is custom, and I don’t think Belle Reve’s repairs service is up to my exacting standards.”

Rick grunted, having paid more attention to the fineness of Deadshot’s tailoring than he’d like to admit, and dumped his clothes on the floor.

Fiddling with the taps, he hissed as a jet of icy water hit him, followed by a lukewarm stream.

“OK. It’s no Hawaiian waterfall, but it’s OK.”

“What would you know about Hawaiian waterfalls, Colonel?”

Floyd was next to him, holding out the lab’s first treatment. It was the nasty-smelling stuff.

“I’ve been places. Here, it says we need to cover every surface that got into contact with the substance.”

It didn’t lather, so Rick slapped it over his legs and flanks in palmfuls. The effect was not unlike carpet burn. “What’s it like?”

“Hawaii? Hotter than this.”

“I mean the goo, dumbass - pass it here.”

Floyd began applying it, and Rick’s eyes followed his hands up and down his thighs, calves, and all the way up. The low-level burning of the treatment and contrasting relief from the water was oddly hypnotic, as was the sight of Lawton’s oversized wang. Cut, leaning ever so slightly to the left, and thick, Rick clocked it for three long seconds before closing his eyes and tipping his chin up into the flow of the water. He tried very hard to think of nothing at all except vomiting clowns.

“Sweet Aunt Fanny! This shit stinging that milky ass of yours too?”

“Mmm-hmmm. Where’s the next one?”

“Shelf.”

Rick uncapped it. Didn’t smell too bad. Not something he’d pick up at Walgreens, but not awful, kind of chalky. He squirted out a handful of white gel and patted it on his chest. “Better. Less burning.”

“Pass some over, then, I’m on fire like the Pointer Sisters.”

The bottle gasped as Rick squeezed out a load into Floyd’s outstretched palm, then doused himself with more. Floyd hummed approvingly, stretching out his long arms and leaning into the stream of water.

Keeping his eyes fixed directly ahead of him on the six inches of tubing holding up the shower head, Rick did his damnedest not to think of the more-than-six-inches of tubing Floyd was packing just a couple of feet away from him. Technically, Lawton was an inmate of Belle Reve and Flag was his supervisory guard for any duration of time that the Squad wasn’t on active duty. Rick Flag, who had taken hundreds of group showers with hundreds of men, did not feel very guarded in this one.

“My back, man, check it out.”

Rick had been checking it out, he was more than familiar with the acres of perfect skin and defined muscle of Floyd Lawton’s goddamn back.

He reached out and lightly tapped at the smear of foam that had trickled over Floyd’s shoulders. In trying not to make it awkward, of course he made it awkward. Floyd leaned back into his fingers with an outsized, “Ooh, baby! That’s the stuff! C’mon, Colonel, don’t make me beg for it.”

Rick sighed and rubbed more gel into Floyd’s skin, trying to focus on washing off the nasty residue, letting himself enjoy getting Floyd cleaned up. His back was wide, muscled, with only a few scars nicking the surface. Rick could just about admit to himself how much he loathed seeing him cooped up in Belle Reve, a tiger in a cage, a natural-born show-off forced to spend days with no one but a punching bag for his audience.

Rubbing over those thick, supple muscles, and watching the water tip over them, Rick asked, “S’feel better?”

Floyd didn’t overstate his reply, just breathed it. “Yeah.”

“Good. One more bottle to go.”

Rick was glad for the excuse to turn away to pick it up. He’d gotten to see Floyd with his eyes pressed closed, looking almost as if he was relaxed. It was a little too much for his own frazzled nerves to take. Colonel Rick Flag could step into any combat situation, blind, outgunned, overpowered, and find a way to take control, but he wasn’t very good when defenses began to fall away.

“That stuff better not say Old Spice.”

“It smells,” Rick took another sniff, “pretty decent. Like,” he really didn’t intend to say it out loud, but his brain was a little too addled to self-censor, “Prince Charming.”

“Prince _Charming?_ Smells like _what_ now?”

Rick threw the bottle at Floyd defensively. “It’s a shower gel. By Lush. Ju - a girl - someone left a bottle behind at my place. I don’t like to waste stuff.”

“Hey, if you want to break out a glitter bath bomb in here just warn a brother first, will you?”

Turning to face the wall again, Rick started determinedly scrubbing his left armpit. Floyd kept laughing, lathering up with the sweet-smelling lotion.

“Poor Flag. All that time in the shower, tugging away, waiting for a real Prince Charming, and you had to wait for Waller to let you be quarantined with me.”

“I didn’t let - just shut up and give me that.”

“Nah nah nah. You deserve some special care, that delicate skin of yours is used to the finest pampering, right? It’s a real pity the FBI didn’t stock up on rose petals and scented candles.”

Floyd was squeezing out huge goopy handfuls of the cleanser, bubbling it between his palms and approaching Rick like he was carrying a bouquet. Blinking at the water getting in his eyes, Rick just stood there and took a direct hit to the chest from the world’s deadliest assassin.

Pursuing his lips, bits of foam caught on his beard, Floyd feigned concentration as he spread the sweet-smelling liquid over Flag’s pecs and over his shoulders. Rick thought, _I should have said I’d stand guard while he used the shower. I should have said it was protocol_. He thought about the reinforced steel door between them and the miles of farmland that stretched out all around the house, and right there, as the steam built up around and the filth of the day drained away, Rick felt as far away from Waller and Belle Reve and everything the Squad had done since day one.

Knowing it was an illusion, at the same time he knew he was as safe as he could ever hope to be, Rick’s eyes closed and his shoulders dropped. Floyd kept washing him, rubbing down his arms, skating his fingertips up to his neck, pushing him in tiny increments to move forward, tilt to the side, give Floyd more access to his body.

Either the water was getting far hotter or Rick could stop kidding himself and acknowledge the heat from Lawton’s body so close by. His lips fell open as fingers spread through his hair and rubbed into the stress gripping his scalp, then down into little circles along the back of his neck.

The tip of his tongue felt the puffs of air from Floyd’s mouth as he murmured, “Just there, and there. Get you cleaned up. Get all that stuff off of you. Better, now, isn’t it?”

Both of Floyd’s wrists rested on his shoulders. Rick’s cock twitched as the tight hold of the rest of his muscles began to give way and let him feel something other than on the edge. Pleasure wasn’t something his body was accustomed to. It felt wrong, like wearing someone else’s uniform. Shifting his body weight forward Rick got his hands back on Floyd, moving them in reciprocal washing motions over his obliques and dipping down to the cut of his hips.

 _Why Floyd,_ he wanted to say, _without your guns you’re basically naked._

It was nice, this, just making each other clean and relaxed after a long and regrettable day. This could be written off as just camaraderie, just something casual, nothing connected to the ball of tension that had lodged firmly at the base of Rick’s spine from the moment he’d first seen Floyd Lawton slugging a punching bag in a grimy cell.

There was no reason for the situation to be escalated in any way. Just as long as Floyd kept his mouth shut.

“So this is what they mean by raising the flag pole.”

Rick was so screwed. A soapy hand had reached down and grabbed his dick, and squeezed it good, shivering Rick's bones from his toes to his skull, and sending out _red alert red alert Danger, Will Robinson_ signals which Rick really couldn’t deal with as Floyd was holding his stare and there was no way Rick was going to be the one to look away first.

“Fuck you.” As he spat it out Rick grabbed Floyd’s cock, which gratifyingly hardened under his grip, as he shoved forward to take up all of the last slivers of space between them.

“We gonna tussle then?”

Floyd slammed back, one hand on Rick’s ass, pushing him into the wall as they ground sloppily together. Pressing his shoulders back, Rick let himself curve into the dual hold Floyd had on him, grimacing as Floyd’s palm twisted on his cock. He had to scuttle his hands over the broad expanse of Floyd's torso to regain his clasp, grabbing one handful of muscled shoulder for purchase as he restarted the most spiteful handjob of his sexual history to date. Floyd laughed, showing his teeth, and squeezed Rick’s ass to pull him forward.

Rick kept saying “Fuck-you-fuck-you-fuck-you,” in short juddery bursts as he wrapped a leg around Floyd’s hips to maintain the slick slide of contact between their cocks when their hands lost purchase. It was too much, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Floyd’s teeth nipped at his neck. “This the best you can do?”

Like hell it was. In a second, Rick had shaken free of Floyd's hold and was on his knees, squinting up at the water flowing down from Floyd’s shoulders like he was looking at some sort of Greek god of smartassery and shooting things. Floyd looked down at Rick like he was concerned, like Rick was in the wrong place. Rick dealt with that speedily, clinging to oaky thighs as he got his mouth around Floyd, tasting salt, copper, and soap, adjusting to his girth quickly and sliding his lips halfway down the shaft, his fingers curled around the base.

“Good God, you look prettier than ever doing that.”

Floyd’s thumbs circled his cheekbones, a request for permission, and Rick looked up at him hard. Hands tightening around his head Floyd pushed down deep into his throat, gasped a little, and then picked up the pace. Rick closed his eyes, focusing on all the key face-fucking tactics he knew - throat soft, teeth covered, breathe through nose - and hazily dropped his hand to jerk himself off.

It didn’t take long, the fingers threaded through his hair and the pulse of Floyd’s heartbeat against his palate more than enough sensory input, and Rick was grateful for the water washing over him as he came. Part of him wished he could flow with it down the drain and into the dark.

“Fire in the hole!”

Of course Floyd would say something like that as he shot hard down Rick’s throat. Rick didn’t yield, suckling back on him, wanting to get Floyd to a point of raw sensitivity to match the state Rick was in. It must have worked, as Floyd pulled out with an “Ahh!” that sounded almost agonized.

Floyd leaned his face against the tiles as Rick shut the water off and stored their three bottles of detoxification and trouble-making on the edge of the shower. He grabbed a threadbare towel and started to dry himself off with his back to Lawton.

When he was done Rick folded the towel up and hung it back on the rail, a military habit ingrained in him, and made to stumble off to sleep on the cot set up in the next room. Before he opened the door he turned back to Floyd, determined not to look like he was running away, determined to get one more look at him.

“Turn the lights off when you leave.”

Floyd looked up. “Yes _sir._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

The next day Rick woke up at daybreak, staring up at the ceiling and feeling the thinness of the mattress under him. He did his usual body scan and noticed that he was in slightly less pain than most mornings, then fully recollected just how he’d relaxed his muscles last night. _Why,_ he asked the ceiling, _didn’t he just take up yoga like Harley had suggested?_

Rick Flag never lingered in bed for longer than he had to. He stretched his arms above his head until his shoulders cracked and started thinking about the priority objectives of his day. Blood tests, send lab the update, communicate with Waller, find food, get them fed, avoid making eye contact with Floyd Lawton for the next three days. 

It was a solid plan. It failed nearly immediately. 

Rick’s reflexes were as honed as Katana’s blade, so he had plenty of time to escape when an intruder built like a linebacker burst into his room and sat on his chest. He had time, he just didn’t have a clue what to do instead. Floyd leaned down to get his face directly in front of Rick's, smiling down at him like a man who had got blown the night before.

“Rise and shine! I was up with the rooster. Did you know we have a rooster? Aside from yours truly here, but I guess you figured that out last night. You know what we don’t have, Colonel? Coffee. I’m used to bad chow in prison but I had kinda hoped the Feds would have left us some Folger’s, at least.”

Rick uttered a few grunts in response. Floyd continued. “So, I can kill the rooster, but I’m kinda fond of him. I've decided to call him Vince Lombari. So, on Vince's behalf I figured I’d check in with senior command about our rations. You may be able to live off sucking my dick, but I need more than just sausage in my diet.”

“Get the fuck off me or I’ll tell Waller you tried to escape and she’ll blow your head off.”

“And make Vince an orphan? You’re a cruel man, Rick Flag.”

 

There were MREs collecting dust in the storeroom. Flag made an executive decision to break protocol and get them real food, which came via an supermarket app order that he routed through eight different servers in three different countries. It got relayed to a delivery truck that unloaded their groceries at the end of the driveway less than an hour later. Floyd found a golf cart somewhere and drove it down to pick everything up, coming back whistling. 

“You got us that Whole Foods organic deluxe shit!”

Rick shrugged, enjoying Floyd’s joyous howls at the fancy cheeses and t-bone steak. An army marches on its stomach, and he knew how lousy the food at Belle Reve was. In a recent report that Flag wasn’t meant to have seen, he’d read that the Squad’s last three missions had saved the US Government approximately $800 million, not counting the $150 million or so of collateral damage. Floyd’s recent assassination of the leader of a child trafficking ring had been, in Flag’s eyes, justification for the entire wretched Squad operation in itself. So, let them eat cake. Or whatever those macaron things were. He’d thrown them into the order after recognizing the picture of the box as being one he’d seen in the waste basket Waller’s office. As far as Rick had observed, Waller’s sweet tooth was her only weakness. Sometimes he wished cavities on her.

Floyd crunched into one inquisitively. “Kind of a cookie with pretensions. Like it’s wearing a beret and reading philosophy.”

“You’re not feeling outsmarted by baked goods, are you Lawton?”

Floyd waved half of a pink pastry at him. “Didn’t say that, Colonel. They’re not bad, but they’re no beignet.”

He liked beignets. Rick filed that information away as he ate his own macaron. “Think I’m going to stay a Ring Ding man.”

“There I was thinking you had a speck of class on you. It’s a fact universally known that Ring Dings are the lowest form of snack cake.”

Ring Dings were what Rick’s Grammy had given him to eat when he visited her, a fact he decided to keep from Floyd. 

After uploading their blood tests, Rick called in to Waller to report that they had seen no side effects. Floyd sat up on a bench facing him, swinging his legs back and forth and providing extra commentary. “Hey, Amanda, does being exceptionally handsome count as a side effect? Because I woke up today looking extra good.”

“Shut it, Lawton. No, neither of us have skin lesions, neither of us swallowed any of the contaminated substance.”

Floyd murmured, “One of us swallowed something,” and Rick glared over and mimed detonating his skull. 

There was a light burr of static over line before Waller replied. “Fine. The lab is still running tests. They say to keep hydrated and take the rest of the tablets in the kit. Drone will come by at eighteen hundred with a new formulation they worked up.”

“Roger that.” 

“Salut!” Floyd lifted his iced chai latte in a toast as Flag signed off. 

He put the radio down. “She sounded pissed. But no so much more than usual.”

Floyd smiled and shrugged. “We’ve got time to kill. Let’s go shoot some things.”

They set up a line of targets on a fence outside. Floyd did most of the shooting. Every time he sent a pop can flying up into the air into a jaunty arabesque Rick wanted to applaud. Vince the rooster strutted over, attracted by the sound of gunfire, proving to Rick that he was definitely spiritually a Squad member trapped in bird form. He pecked at the ground and let Rick ruffle his feathers. The sun shone down on his black and red feathers as bullets flew through the air. Floyd looked as joyful as he did the first time Rick saw him with a gun, that day at the range in Belle Reve. 

That had been the moment that Rick had known, seeing the weapon in Floyd’s hands, the incredulity melting from his face as he snapped into focus, that Amanda had unleashed something that couldn’t be taken back. Like a bullet, or the last shreds of Rick’s good sense. 

The drone arrived at six on the dot, carrying a sleek black box with two pre-loaded hypodermic needles inside. 

"I hate needles." 

Floyd was not happy. He sat on the porch with Vince next to him, arms crossed. 

"Stand up, turn around, and drop your pants."

"Not in front of the kids!" Floyd made to cover Vince's eyes. 

"Let's get this over with. I've got filet mignon for dinner."

"I don't put out on the first date. At least bring me roses or something."

But he got up and swung around, pulling his waist band down far enough for Rick to pinch an juicy inch of ass and stick the needle in and slide the stopper down. Floyd made an unhappy sound. "Nasty little prick."

Impulsively, Rick bent down and brushed his lips over the reddened spot. "There, I kissed it better. Now stop your bitching and go peel the potatoes." 

 

After finishing their steaks, Rick was washing the last of the dishes when he felt two hands grab his hips. He let Floyd swivel him around and press his back to counter, keeping eye contact stone cold as he inched down Flag’s pants. All through their meal they’d been fighting, about politics, race, Waller, the army, the Batman. They both kept it soft, locker-room shit-talking, and as long as Floyd was verbal Rick felt reassured that he was fine. Now Floyd was not only grabbing Rick’s cock, but doing it silently. It was unnerving. 

“Relax.” Floyd smiled. “I got dessert.”

“This is absolutely not relaxing.” 

Somehow Rick was bent backwards over the kitchen table, pants around his ankles, stretched out to stare up at the ceiling and grabbing the sides for purchase, unrelaxed as hell as Floyd sucked his dick. He couldn't talk much, but he remained loud, licking and humming and making all these wet noises that wound Rick’s nerves tighter and tighter. When Floyd gave his balls an aggressive squeeze, Rick banged his head on the table, and when one spit-slick finger moved behind them and stroked back towards his entrance, he nearly choked on his own tongue. 

It was dark outside, the only light coming from the fluorescent bars in the kitchen, which played over the smoothness of Floyd’s scalp. Rick wanted to reach down and stroke it, feel the solidity of it, wondering if it was as silky as he’d always imagined, like the velvet feel of Floyd’s cock in his mouth last night. That memory was what did it; he gasped out a warning and came in prolonged streaks all over himself as Floyd lifted his mouth off of him. 

Floyd was laughing, then a roll of paper towels hit him in the side of his head. Too late, Rick had already ruined his only clean t-shirt.

“Mop yourself up before I take a picture.”

Rick tucked the towels under his head. He felt boneless. The table top might have well have been a feather mattress.

“Turn the lights out when you go. I’ll sleep here.”

“That’s not the plan.”

“All the plan I have.”

“Nuh-uh. I’m gonna fuck you,” Floyd told him. 

Rick thought, _you already have._

Caught up in a net of Floyd’s arms, Rick let himself be turned towards the room on the left where Floyd's gear was stashed. There was a bed there, a double. When they first walked in Rick had immediately assigned it to Floyd, happy that he would be getting a few night’s sleep on something built for his height instead of a tiny prison bench. 

The bed wasn’t really big enough for two guys their size, but they fell on it heavily, their legs wrapping together, as though Rick’s lack of resistance and Floyd’s outbreak of tenderness had melted the air between them. It was like, Rick thought, as Floyd pushed him onto his front and slid up his back in a slow, intoxicating drag of skin on skin, like being in a bubble. 

Floyd had two of his fingers coated with cocoa butter - thanks again, Amanda - curled up inside him like Rick was his favorite weapon. Instead of just pinning him face down and fucking him through the mattress like a gentleman would, Floyd curled his other arm around him and nestled his mouth right there on his shoulder, talking a steady stream of soft filth.

"Just going to open this tight ass of yours up like a ripe peach, split you open until you can't think of anything except how good I feel, how good I am at this, how I'm ruining you for your own hands, bet they never feel like this, huh? Bet you'll be shoving your own fingers in your ass thinking about me every time now, oh don't try and deny it, Flag - " Rick wasn't, he was busy gasping for breath - "just let me look after you. You're going to feel so fine, and you know you’re gonna come like crazy for me all over again."

There was an ache and a new warm spike of pleasure as Floyd's fingers scissored inside him. Teeth bit down on his shoulder, little points of pain that amplified every other sensation, from the burn of Floyd's hands holding him tight, the weight of his body on Rick's back, the scratchiness of the sheets bundled up under him, the spit pooling in the corners of his mouth, and the red heat of his hard-on trapped between his stomach and the mattress. 

“How - _unh_ \- does that feel, Colonel?”

"Shut up, please, please just fucking shut _up_." 

Rick did not want Floyd to shut up, not then, not ever; but he thought it was possible he himself might lose the power of speech as the blunt head of Floyd's cock entered him. His whole body stopped fighting and opened just like Floyd had said it would. He might as well have thrown a welcome mat down. His legs were bent enough to tip his hips forward, his spine curled up like an autumn leaf, and the pain was as welcome as an old friend. 

Floyd kept up an insistent rhythm, their skin slapping together like a high five, punctuating his thrusts with little unexpected bursts of sensation across Rick’s body - a pinch, a smack, the hard trail of a fingernail along Rick's ribs. It was riotous for his nerve endings, overflowing with sensory input as his brain pushed against any firm notions of time or responsibility. Taking care of inhaling and exhaling seemed like enough of a duty right now. 

As hand with remarkable precision in the finger joints grabbed Rick’s hips to push him up on the mattress, Rick clawed at the sheets, feeling the incoming rush as his balls tightened up, ready to come. This time it was less of an explosion, and more like falling off the side of a building. Rick felt light-headed and liquid. Above him, Floyd had grasped his shoulder and slowed down to long, even thrusts. 

“Better, right?”

Rick grunted into the mattress, which was enough acknowledgement to make Floyd laugh. At least he sounded breathless with it, because soon he was closer than ever to Rick, pushing him down by the shoulder blades. 

“Gonna - _goddamnit_ , Rick.”

Rick hazily registered the wet heat inside him, another spasm of his stomach muscles, the grip and release of Floyd’s hands on his body. 

Then the weight on his back disappeared as Floyd flopped over to the other side of the bed. Rick rolled his body over to lie on his back, keeping an eye on Floyd’s profile, still as distressingly good-looking as ever, but contemplative in repose. 

Floyd laid with his hands folded behind his head. Rick worked to get his breath back and was most of the way there when Floyd spoke up.

“You and June go to Hawaii?”

Rick bolted upright. “What?”

Floyd rolled his jaw, infuriatingly relaxed. “You said you’d been under a waterfall in Hawaii, I thought, that’s the kind of place you take your lady for a vacation - ”

“No. No. And,” he wanted to say, _don’t talk about her, don’t bring her here_ , but it was too late. 

Like the Enchantress, she’d been unwillingly summoned to kick him in the teeth all over again. Rick rubbed his face, reminding himself that punching Floyd after sex would be the one thing worse than letting the sex happen in the first place.

“I didn’t get to take her anywhere. She’s not my lady, not anymore.” 

“So it’s official. She’s not around.” 

Floyd didn’t even make it a question, just said it flat, let it rest heavy on Rick’s chest. Rick knew that the Squad had all known for a long time, but Floyd was still going to make Rick spit all the backstory out. Prison taught a man patience.

“A professor she’d worked with once - before - offered her a quiet research job in Costa Rica. I told Waller, if you let her go, I’ll stay in your illegal team of homicidal mercenaries.”

“You gave up your freedom?”

“It’s what June needed.”

“And what, you guys hang out on Skype now?” 

Rick felt very, very tired. He lay down next to Floyd, forgetting why he’d even been angry at him.

“No. She wanted to rebuild herself, pick up the pieces of her psyche. She couldn’t rely on someone else as her support. She had grow strong on her own.”

That’s what June had told him, over and over again, before she’d packed up and left him with an empty bed and a bottle of Prince Charming in his shower. He would throw it out when he got home. He should have done that a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oodles of thanks to [ba_rabby](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_rabby/pseuds/ba_rabby) for beta work above and beyond the call of duty. Any remaining mistakes are on my dumbass head.


	3. Chapter 3

In the mornings they took their blood tests and Flag uploaded the results to Belle Reve’s network. Once Waller had sent acknowledgement that they’d gone through, he nodded to Floyd and they headed outside to run laps around the overgrown fields. Floyd ran light, only carrying three guns, but he was better at distance than Rick, while Rick could destroy him in sprints. 

With minimal rearrangement, Rick set up one of the screens from the command center to get basic cable. They hauled an old couch over and watched re-runs of M*A*S*H and Star Trek. Rick discovered they both liked Trek more than Star Wars, both had been in their respective school’s astronomy clubs, and both had dreamed of going to Space Camp as kids. 

“I asked Zoe about it, once.” Floyd leaned forward to put a napkin smeared with BBQ sauce on the metal locker they were using as a table-cum-footrest. “She said she thought outer space sounded lonely. I always kinda thought that was the appeal.”

Rick smiled. He’d never told his parents about Space Camp. He was an army brat, and he had tried to never ask for anything unless he knew it was coming anyway. 

Floyd continued, “She’s all fired up about the Girl Scouts wilderness trip this Summer. Has her heart set on going camping, if you can believe it.”

Rick replied, “Waller should be able to -”

“Oh, Waller will get her in.” He turned to look at Rick. “She was once a young black girl who wanted to learn survival skills, too, you know.”

Rick grunted. He didn’t want to think about how Amanda Waller had grown up and what had happened to make her become what she was. 

 

That night, Rick was woken up by the dip in his mattress. Floyd climbed on top of him, naked, on his hands and knees for a moment, reaching over to pull the bed clothes of off Rick, who was lying on his back. He was no fan of surprises, but it was better to be awake. Sleep was full of bad dreams, of blood mixed with green goo, of faces frozen in terror, of bodies that exploded when they were shot down. The bottle of cocoa butter was dropped by his side as Floyd pulled down Rick’s boxers. “Army issue skivvies, even, Flag? You ever heard of dressing to impress?” 

He picked up the lotion bottle, leaning back on his heels. Rick looked up at the long lines of his body, how perfectly composed he was for being such a rotten sonofabitch. 

“Says the guy who wears red knee pads.” Rick actually liked Deadshot’s costume the best out of all the Squad, and from the look Floyd gave him he probably knew it.

“That’s just my work clothes, and you know even then I’ve got some high-thread-count business covering my junk.” 

He pulled at his cock as he said it, one long, easy, stroke, but not with the hand now covered in lotion, which Rick was getting intrigued by. 

Floyd moved to kneel over him, saying “Even basic white boys usually get a set of Calvin Klein chonies, at least they do if they’ve been at the gym one day in twenty. And yet you,” he grabbed Rick’s cock with his palmful of slick, “you have all this going on, and you dress like a blind dude who wandered into a military surplus store.”

As he said ‘all this going on’ Floyd’s other hand patted over Rick’s torso appraisingly, something Rick’s brain struggled to deal with alongside the wet, rhythmic pressure being applied to his dick.

“Joined the service to do my duty to my country. Not to be a fashion model.”

Floyd pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Explains that lesbian folk singer haircut, I guess.”

With that wisdom dispensed, he settled fully over Rick’s hips, one hand still working over his hard-on until he reached back and - _oh_ , Rick tried to hold himself steady as Floyd began to sink down on him, head thrown back to show Rick the long column of his throat. Rick gripped Floyd’s thighs and tried not to close his own eyes. 

Floyd laughed a little. “Oh, damn, Flag, not bad for a lesbian folk singer.”

“Are you - ”

“Fine as a dime. Move, c’mon, horsie. Giddyup.”

Rolling his hips over Rick, they fitted together in a smooth motion like a key turning in a lock. Rick let out a slow “Fuck,” between gritted teeth as Floyd found his speed. 

“Mmm-hmmm, you army boys are easier than you look.” He patted Rick’s chest approvingly. 

Rick pressed up, his hands around the steely muscles of Floyd’s thighs, his cock encased in the silken hold of his body, the completeness of it feeling as shocking as a bucket of ice water. 

“To hell with your ease, Lawton.”

Floyd just laughed that infuriating loose cackle and leaned back further, the muscles in his abs flexing with exertion, his cock bobbing up in front of him. Rick wanted to put his mouth on it, wanted it inside him just the same way, wanted this heat that was searing through his body to only increase until it burned off all the nerves he felt crunching like broken glass. Instead he pulled the base of his spine down to center himself, and let Floyd ride. 

Lawton looked down at him lazily as he moved back and forward in short thrusts. He looked so satisfied with himself, while Rick was trying not to fall to pieces, so Rick grasped for his dick, thinking he’d unsettle Floyd a little. 

“Nuh-uh, Flag, I’m driving here.”

“I bet I could take that smile off your face.”

“You think you’d like that? You wouldn’t. Just gotta be useful, that’s our Colonel Flag. So needy,”

Floyd leaned down and rested his hands on Rick’s shoulders, pushing him into the mattress as he popped his hips back and forth. His face was closer to Rick’s, and the heat of his breath was taking Rick to boiling point. “You know what your problem is, Flag?”

Rick knew what his problem was. It was the 230 pounds of snark and firepower he had his dick inside.

“You get off on being needed by people who don’t need you back. You put these women on a pedestal, and run around being their White Knight until they find a reason to get rid of you. Being Waller’s guard dog, at least it’s a use, huh? Even if you’re disposable. Maybe especially if you’re disposable. Army’s fulla masochists.”

Rick freed his arm from Floyd’s weight and punched him in the jaw. It was probably the most telegraphed punch Rick had thrown since second grade, but Lawton didn’t bother to duck it, yee-hawing as he lifted back with the blow. They were still melded together, Floyd’s legs wrapped vise-tight around Rick’s hips. 

“You put some stank on that one, huh?” Floyd cupped his jaw with one hand, the other stretched out behind him for balance. There was a slight waver in his voice, and Rick growled, wanting to gain more ground. He hooked his hands around Floyd’s knees and sat up. 

Floyd was in his lap, his cock pressing into Rick’s belly, and Rick wanted to shake all of his limbs out of their sockets. Floyd seemed to have the same idea, moving more frantically now, his eyes locked on Rick’s. Blinking away the sweat streaming down his face, Rick moved a fraction quicker than Floyd was, almost throwing him off but keeping a hold of his frame. Floyd’s eyes closed and his chin lifted, “Ahh - ahhhh,”

Rick felt desperate, like a junkyard dog barking at passing cars. He bit and licked at Floyd’s neck, trying not to think of any marks he’d be leaving behind or the beard rash he was getting. 

Floyd grabbed Rick’s head by the jaw and tilted it to meet his mouth, kissing him deeply. Rick couldn’t look, could only lick back into Floyd’s mouth, knowing he was squeezing Floyd’s shoulder hard enough to bruise it. He was coming inside of him, his whole body trembling with the effort to ride it out and keep Floyd in his arms. 

They teetered for a while, testing gravity, before crashing down. Rick lay heavy as Floyd ground his hips into him, breathing heavy as he came in hot jets across Rick’s stomach. 

Rick hooked his fingers into Floyd’s elbows just light enough to suggest that he stay put for a while.

His whole life, Rick had hated not knowing what the next steps in the plan were, but lying there with Floyd’s weight leaning into him, half-asleep and spent, in a forgotten house in a wheat field in the middle of Kansas, he felt comfortable enough to let his brain wander. Even though they’d been fucking non-stop for three days, it was half-formed thoughts about sex that flickered through his mind as he dozed. Of Floyd pressed up against a wall, first with his back to Rick, then turned around so he could look into Floyd’s eyes; of being blown by him in a car, Rick’s hands clenched on the wheel; the two of them horizontal, rolling around on an endlessly long mattress, Rick caught between Floyd’s thighs. 

The experience with June must have worn something too tender in his brain, because he suddenly saw them together in an apartment, one he knew, one he had the keys to in his locker at Belle Reve, where there was a kitchen and a bedroom and seven different escape routes and a map of the USA on the wall and sunshine and there was Rick, holding Floyd, grappling with him with all the usual urgency and hunger of sex but this time, they were somewhere safe, and Rick’s heart squeezed something brutal into his bloodstream that made his chest tighten. 

His fingers curled around Floyd’s arms, trying to memorize the grain of that soft skin, and he did his best to shake off the vision of Floyd in his home. 

 

They could hear the sound of the helicopter approaching. Flag tightened his grip on the medical case, mentally re-checking every part of leaving protocol. He had cleared up, incinerated what wasn’t needed, wiped down all surfaces, packed all the gear away. His uniform wasn’t pressed but it was as neat as he could make it. 

That afternoon, Floyd had taken Vince aside for a father-son discussion, telling him that he had to make his own way in the world now. Rick had taken a quick picture of the two of them together and promised that he would send it on to Zoe. 

Now Floyd stood shoulder to shoulder with him, both of them facing the westward direction of the chopper. Flag’s teeth ground together. 180 seconds to landing, 160, 120…

“You know the best time I ever had on a mission?” Floyd’s voice broke into his concentration, as it always, always did. Rick kept looking at the sky as he responded. 

“Yeah. The stint in Midway dealing with those zombie Nazis.”

Floyd laughed. 80 seconds until landing. The whirring blades of the helicopter were visible above the tree line. “Nah, though shooting Nazis is always a good way to spend a working day.”

Then he went silent, as if he was considering what to say next for the first time in his goddamn life. They could see the tinted windows now, where Waller would be sitting behind the pilot, watching them waiting for her. 

“It was when we were in Blue Valley. The job where the freak inventor set the boxing robots loose on us. I watched you take a hit from one that was going after Katana.”

Rick remembered. He’d dislocated his left shoulder with the impact of an iron fist. If it had been two inches to the right, he’d either be in a wheelchair or six feet under. 

Floyd’s voice was hard to make out over the din of the helicopter’s landing. “I stopped that thing with one bullet,” 

The door was opening now, and Waller was getting out and approaching them. Rick stood up a little straighter, trying not to show anything on his face. Floyd hoisted his gun to his chest and said his last words on Kansas soil.

“I got it before it could hit you again.”


End file.
